Ending
I've broken 10,000 words. I'm optimistically trying to double that by the end of the weekend. May or may not happen. Even if I have to pull all-nighters for the last week, I am determined to get this finished in a month, or at the very least hit 50,000 words even if that doesn't finish the story.
As for the ending, I've decided on a hybrid of options B and C. So far, she's been seized by the confeds (I've decided to make it a confederation rather than federal system just to make it a little more futurey), destroyed the data, and inadvertenly inflicted brain damage on one of the guards with a High Energy Radio Frequency (HERF) emitter an actual device that causes many of the same destructive effects to electrical components without the radioactivity. Wanna see?
This was not good, not by a long shot. If indeed she had ever had a chance of escaping detection, much less the planet, it was gone now. Her mind went to the microdrives. They were still in the lining of her coveralls. No doubt the confeds knew she had them on her. She couldn’t let them have the data, and it would only be a matter of time before they searched her for it. If they were determined to get her, at the very least they wouldn’t get her work. It would be another five or ten years for her to reconstruct it before they could force anything useful out of her. It wasn’t much of a strategy, but for the time being, it was all she had.
No doubt she was being monitored. She couldn’t see the lenses, but they must be around. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arm around her legs in what she hoped was a convincing fetal position. Her left arm was pressed into the back of the sofa, where she was reasonably certain a monitor couldn’t see, and she slowly worked her right hand up on her bicep to her upper arm pocket and fished her fingers in. She palmed her HERF and charged it up. There was no subtle way to accomplish the next step. She would have to get it done before anyone could burst in to stop her.
She pulled her right hand out, quickly took aim at her breast, and fired the emitter into the microdrives. It might not destroy the data entirely, but it would corrupt it enough to be useless. She managed to fire a second and third charge before guards burst in, wrestled her to the ground, and pried the emitter out of her hand. One unceremoniously ripper her coveralls from her collar to her navel, and seeing no flesh damage around where she fired, started inspecting the emitter like a chimp in a zoo looking at something new that had been thrown into his exhibit. She wondered why guards trained to apprehend scientists weren’t any more versed in the basics of technology. Of course, if he had any bioelectric implants, as most goons certainly did, and accidentally fired it at himself, that could work to her advantage. They could do her a big favor by taking themselves out so she wouldn’t have to.
The guard with the emitter managed to find the trigger and discharged it. He dropped the emitter and followed it to the ground, curled in a ball and clutching the right side of his skull. He must have had a cranial implant or a cochlear microreceiver. Most likely from the way he held his head, it was the cochlear receiver, which meant he was the team leader, receiving the orders radioed into his inner ear. Blowing that out was going to cause some serious damage.
The guard who had her pinned to the ground yanked her arms behind her back, hoisted her up by her elbows which very nearly wrenched both her shoulders from their sockets. The one on her upper body threw his other arm around her in a chokehold so her ribcage was being crushed between his forearms. Another grabbed hold of her ankles and pulled her feet out from under her so they were carrying her slung between them not entirely unlike a corpse in a bodybag. In that manner, they dragged her down the corridor and threw her into a detainment cell. Here, the pretense ended. The room was completely bare save for a spray nozzle in the center of the ceiling and a drain along the floor baseboards.
As for the ending, I've decided on a hybrid of options B and C. So far, she's been seized by the confeds (I've decided to make it a confederation rather than federal system just to make it a little more futurey), destroyed the data, and inadvertenly inflicted brain damage on one of the guards with a High Energy Radio Frequency (HERF) emitter an actual device that causes many of the same destructive effects to electrical components without the radioactivity. Wanna see?
This was not good, not by a long shot. If indeed she had ever had a chance of escaping detection, much less the planet, it was gone now. Her mind went to the microdrives. They were still in the lining of her coveralls. No doubt the confeds knew she had them on her. She couldn’t let them have the data, and it would only be a matter of time before they searched her for it. If they were determined to get her, at the very least they wouldn’t get her work. It would be another five or ten years for her to reconstruct it before they could force anything useful out of her. It wasn’t much of a strategy, but for the time being, it was all she had.
No doubt she was being monitored. She couldn’t see the lenses, but they must be around. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arm around her legs in what she hoped was a convincing fetal position. Her left arm was pressed into the back of the sofa, where she was reasonably certain a monitor couldn’t see, and she slowly worked her right hand up on her bicep to her upper arm pocket and fished her fingers in. She palmed her HERF and charged it up. There was no subtle way to accomplish the next step. She would have to get it done before anyone could burst in to stop her.
She pulled her right hand out, quickly took aim at her breast, and fired the emitter into the microdrives. It might not destroy the data entirely, but it would corrupt it enough to be useless. She managed to fire a second and third charge before guards burst in, wrestled her to the ground, and pried the emitter out of her hand. One unceremoniously ripper her coveralls from her collar to her navel, and seeing no flesh damage around where she fired, started inspecting the emitter like a chimp in a zoo looking at something new that had been thrown into his exhibit. She wondered why guards trained to apprehend scientists weren’t any more versed in the basics of technology. Of course, if he had any bioelectric implants, as most goons certainly did, and accidentally fired it at himself, that could work to her advantage. They could do her a big favor by taking themselves out so she wouldn’t have to.
The guard with the emitter managed to find the trigger and discharged it. He dropped the emitter and followed it to the ground, curled in a ball and clutching the right side of his skull. He must have had a cranial implant or a cochlear microreceiver. Most likely from the way he held his head, it was the cochlear receiver, which meant he was the team leader, receiving the orders radioed into his inner ear. Blowing that out was going to cause some serious damage.
The guard who had her pinned to the ground yanked her arms behind her back, hoisted her up by her elbows which very nearly wrenched both her shoulders from their sockets. The one on her upper body threw his other arm around her in a chokehold so her ribcage was being crushed between his forearms. Another grabbed hold of her ankles and pulled her feet out from under her so they were carrying her slung between them not entirely unlike a corpse in a bodybag. In that manner, they dragged her down the corridor and threw her into a detainment cell. Here, the pretense ended. The room was completely bare save for a spray nozzle in the center of the ceiling and a drain along the floor baseboards.
posted by Janet | 1:43 PM
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